Book contents
- Los Angeles: A LITERARY HISTORY
- Los Angeles
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part ITemporalities
- Chapter 1Birth of a City
- Chapter 2Maturity and Mythmaking
- Chapter 3Comedies Physical and Metaphysical
- Chapter 4Metamodern Megalopolis
- Chapter 5“In a Desert of Perception”
- Part IIIdentity, Resistance, Representation
- Part IIIPlace and Space
- Part IVGenre and Form
- Index
- References
Chapter 5 - “In a Desert of Perception”
Mental Fog in Los Angeles Fiction (2003–Present)
from Part I - Temporalities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2026
Book contents
- Los Angeles: A LITERARY HISTORY
- Los Angeles
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part ITemporalities
- Chapter 1Birth of a City
- Chapter 2Maturity and Mythmaking
- Chapter 3Comedies Physical and Metaphysical
- Chapter 4Metamodern Megalopolis
- Chapter 5“In a Desert of Perception”
- Part IIIdentity, Resistance, Representation
- Part IIIPlace and Space
- Part IVGenre and Form
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter explores the contemporary literature of Los Angeles. It demonstrates that the toxicity of the California Dream, already present in nineteenth-century booster romances, has not been attenuated by time. If anything, this chapter claims, LA as represented in its literature has only grown murkier, both atmospherically and psychologically. Hicks exposes distortions of the city’s realities, inequalities, and historical origins in novels such as Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice (2009), James Frey’s Bright Shiny Morning (2008), and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout (2015). Likewise, explains Hicks, the protagonists of futuristic novels by Claire Vaye Watkins, Michael Tolkin, Ben Winters, and Alexandra Kleeman succumb to collective fantasy, amnesia, delusion, and dementia.
Keywords
Information
- Type
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- Information
- Los AngelesA Literary History, pp. 83 - 98Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
Works Cited
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